Farewell
by frenziedpanda7
Summary: Go back to the place where our suffering began. Go back to Kul Elna...


Farewell

I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh. I just write for fun, I'm not quitting my day job.

_Alone_

He was alone, finally alone, as he had not been in so many years. He had felt the spirit, the voice in his head, pull free of the Ring, leaving him sprawled on the worn and dusty stone steps, abandoned like a broken doll.

_Alone_

He should be happy, surely? He was free, his mind his own. No more missing time, no more blood, no more pain. No need to fear for his friends. No need to fear _having_ friends!

Why, then, did he feel so lost, so empty, so…

_Alone_

In the chamber beyond, he could hear Yugi and the others. He couldn't hear all of what they were saying, but he heard enough to realize the _other_ Yugi was also gone. He slowly gathered his legs underneath him- he should go down to them, find out-

"Not yet, Ring Bearer!"

He froze in the act of getting to his feet. A voice, but not _the voice_! Speaking from within the Ring but not in his head. A voice that recalled dark memories of blood and pain, yes, but also comfort and protection.

"You -on the blimp- you were with me? Who..?"

"Yugi has a task to perform. You also have a task to perform, Bakura Ryou. Go to the place where our suffering began. Go back to Kul Elna-"

"I- I don't understand- where is Kul Elna? How do I-?"

"The Ring will guide you. You are the Ring Bearer, the _last_ Ring Bearer! Its power is yours now."

His hand glided over the Ring, the shadows swirled around him, and he was in another place…

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The sun beat down upon him, yet all about him was the chill of death. He walked the streets of a village of death. Houses became ruins, ruins became rubble, rubble became sand and dust, and the dust became a curtain pulled away to reveal events lost to living memory millennia ago…

The moon had set, but Re had yet to begin his journey across the heavens when the soldiers came. His mother had screamed for him to run, even as they dragged her and his sisters away after slitting his father's throat when he tried to stop them. He dodged behind houses and sheds trying to keep them in sight, a blood-soaked cloth thrown over his head to hide his pale hair. Goats, donkeys and geese ran wild in the fire and the blood as the soldiers seized the villagers and burned their homes, killing all who resisted. He saw the flames reflected in their blank, shining eyes. He heard them laughing, always laughing.

He was afraid, so very afraid, but he wanted his mother so he crept along behind as the villagers were herded into the storerooms hollowed out in the caves at the edge of the village. He shook with fright, the bloody cloth falling from his head as he crawled into the tiny crevice in the rock wall.

It was there that the childhood of a ten-year-old boy was snuffed out as he watched his family and his people burn. Watched as they were burned and melted, their blood, bones and flesh used to forge Items of magic and power, watched as a demon from the depths of the underworld was let loose upon the land. And the fires died down and the ashes and dust swirled around him…

And again the sun was beating down on him, leaving him standing in the remains of a village long lost to living memory.

Guided by memories not his own, he made his way to the store rooms that had become a blood-soaked temple to an abomination that had set itself up as a god. He gazed upon the stone with indentations for each of the Items. Though he knew this was where the story would end, this was _not_ what he was seeking.

There was a quiet hum as the Ring's pointers lifted of their own accord, pointing to a narrow passage leading out from the left of the main chamber. He moved along, oblivious to the dust and tears streaking his face. The glow from the Ring was the only illumination as his feet trod a path not walked in three thousand years. He walked an hour; he walked a lifetime. The light of the Ring was not enough to reveal the hidden chamber; his groping hands found the entryway.

A gasp that was not quite a scream escaped him when he spied the faces staring at him. A surge of power from the Ring bathed the room in angry light.

Shabti ,he realized. They were shabti, carved figures placed in tombs to serve the deceased in the afterlife. But these were much bigger than normal, life sized, men, women, children and babes in arms. They filled the small room. Ninety-nine he counted grouped around-

The coffin in the center of the room was not the coffin of a farmer or a laborer. He had learned enough from his father to recognize the quality of the workmanship. This was the coffin of a nobleman, perhaps even of royalty, from the Seventeenth-maybe Eighteenth Dynasty. The Ring throbbed and glowed like a sun going nova. He reached out…

He reached out blindly as he staggered through the burning city. He gave no heed to the dead and dying, nor to the blood running into his eyes. He knew he was dying, but would not submit, not until he had avenged his people. Not until he had revenge on the one who betrayed him.

Pharaoh and those priests left to him were making a final desperate stand against the dark horror raining destruction upon the world. Pharaoh was reciting a spell to seal the abomination. His power alone would not be enough, but with some help-

The Ring flared to life. He put all his rage, all the rage and despair of Kul Elna into his attack. Renewed hope gave strength to Pharaoh's voice as the Dark One faltered under the two pronged attack. In those final moments of life, two mortal enemies clasped hands, combining their last strength to save the Two Lands. Then, the shadows ripped them away from life.

Sight and feeling were lost to him, but from afar, he heard were commanded to throw his body into the Nile to feed the crocodiles. Then, the voice of a girl? Woman? Overrode them, demanding that honor be given to the one that gave his life to aid Pharaoh, whose people had been foully murdered to create the Items. He should be granted the burial of a prince and entombed in the village of his birth.

Before the shadows completely consumed him, he heard one final voice, the voice of the new pharaoh.

"_So let it be done…"_

A final surge from the Ring, and the coffin lid was flung away, coming to rest near a shabti carved in the image of a woman holding an infant in her arms. He fell to his knees, hands shaking as they gripped the edges of the coffin, fresh tears stinging his eyes as he leaned forward to look within…

The linen bandages, the protective amulets, the heart scarab, all pointed to the burial of someone of considerable importance. Yet it all was at odds with the way the deceased had been hidden away in an abandoned storage room, with no grave goods, no records of the life of the deceased, no name recorded on the walls of this strange resting place.

But, he didn't need a name, not once he saw the dust and dirt-streaked strands of hair revealed by the fraying bandages wrapped around the head, hair that had once been as white as his own. Clutched in the once powerful hands was a papyrus scroll, the magic that preserved it detected and echoed by the Ring.

"Take the scroll, Bakura Ryou. You are the heir of the people of Kul Elna, and it is your task to free them."

"I-I don't know how to read-" He protested, even as his shaking hands worked the scroll free and unrolled it-

"The spell was mine, Ring Bearer. Listen and say the words with me."

His voice rang out, reciting words of power in a long-dead language. The Ring pulsed in time to his chanting, orbs of light shooting out from its depths, seeking out the carved images that looked on in silence. The Ring grew hotter and brighter until there was nothing but brightness and a wind that shrieked in the voices of a murdered village…

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"_We are free. We are free."_

"_Mama? Mama, where are you?"_

"_We are free. We are free."_

"_I am here! Oh my darlings, I am here!"_

"_We are free! We are FREE!"_

Again, the sun beat down upon him as he sat in the dust. And the dust became rubble, rubble became ruins, the ruins became houses, and the people of Kul Elna gathered before him. Men, women, children- their faces were the faces carved in the shabti left in the tomb. In the tomb, he had counted ninety-nine, but now there was one more, a man bronzed and well muscled, silver-white hair falling over his face nearly obscuring the jagged scarring below the right eye. The man reached down and pulled him to his feet.

"Your task here is done, Landlord. You must return to the others. Pharaoh's time is at hand, and Yugi will need _all_ his friends."

Bakura Ryou wept one final time as the thief's hands smoothed his hair. He closed his eyes as cool lips brushed his forehead.

"Farewell, little Landlord. You too are free."

Shadows drew him away and he was falling forward on dusty steps, falling into the arms of his friends. Jonouchi lifted the Ring from his neck and handed it to Yugi just before he fell into an exhausted sleep…

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He walked with them the next morning as they walked through the dust of Kul Elna, stood and watched as Yugi returned the Items to their resting place in the stone. The emptiness stabbed at him briefly as the Ring was placed, superseded a moment later by the shock of seeing Yugi and the pharaoh standing together, then moving apart to begin their final duel.

It was when they thought the duel was near its end, that Yugi had the victory, that the pharaoh, Atem, summoned his best and truest servant. They all froze in shock as Dark Magician spoke to his master but, for Bakura, it was the shock of recognition as he heard again the voice of the one who had protected him on the blimp, the one who had guided him in the reading of the ancient spell that had finally freed the trapped souls of Kul Elna. The monster who had once been the priest Mahaad glanced over his shoulder, locking eyes with his fellow Ring Bearer for one quick moment before the battle resumed.

It was not long after that the duel finally ended. At the end, it was not skill but knowledge, Yugi's knowledge of his dearest friend, that enabled Yugi to predict and counter Atem's final move.

When the doors opened and a once-nameless pharaoh walked into the light of a long- awaited afterlife, Bakura's gaze was drawn to three figures standing off to the side at the very edge of the light: a blonde woman with delicate features standing with a little girl in a bright yellow dress who giggled and waved as a silver haired man, a scar running down his face, scooped her up and set her on his shoulder…

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Days later, they returned to Domino. Bakura was not yet ready to return home. His steps took him to the little church where he had learned about the true darkness of the Items. He slipped into a pew at the back, bowed his head, and prayed for the souls of his mother and sister, his fellow Ring Bearers, and the people of Kul Elna.

_We are free. We are all free._


End file.
